There is an amusing tendency amongst religious and racist frauds of all stripes to boast about their academic prowess as a way of adding legitimacy to their philosophies, while simultaneously exercising shockingly poor academic ethics. A typical example of this are people who claim their particular religious tradition is thousands of years old but are unwilling and unable to produce one shred of evidence as proof. This generally manifests itself in situations commonly reserved for TV preachers and other hucksters who want your money. This also comes into play with racists who spout ridiculous, quasi-scientific theories with their citations consisting of routinely discredited studies or papers that mysteriously can’t be found.

In Steven McNallen, we have the perfect synthesis of all of the above elements. We’ve been smelling the racist stench from McNallen for years, but every time we’ve probed our local heathen communities for comments or insights, we’ve met with nothing but brick walls. Circle Ansuz, an anti-fascist heathen collective who’s been the perennial foe of the idiotic “bay area national anarchists,” has written a fantastic piece that truly demolishes the mythology around McNallen. As you’ll find out, McNallen isn’t a quaint “racialist” who thinks that different races can live peacefully separate from each other, he quite literally believes that the souls of different races are as incompatible as an Allen wrench to a flat-head screw. Oh, and he tagged along with and wrote fawning articles about a mercenary outfit composed of former members of apartheid South Africa’s official government death squad.

Stephen McNallen is, without a doubt, one of the most famous names in American Heathenry. A long-time participant, organizer, and writer in American Asatru McNallen has been active since the early 70s when he helped found the Asatru Free Assembly. Following the organization’s collapse over the issue of racism he traveled the world, writing for Soldier of Fortune magazine, before founding the Asatru Folk Assembly in 1994. Since then he has led the AFA to becoming a large, well-known, and established element in the American Heathen community. So great is his influence and fame that many say he is the most important man in American Heathenry. His proponents claim, quite loudly, that without McNallen Heathenry would not exist in the United States.

The story is very powerful, compelling, and is a carefully crafted myth. Stephen McNallen, far from being the messianic figure he is held up as, has for some time been an active participant in the American neo-fascist radical traditionalist movement. It is not certain how long he has been involved in the neo-fascist movement but what is certain is since at least 1985 he has been an unapologetic advocate for white nationalism. Far worse, he has actively worked to advance his brand of Heathenry by concealing it behind an appealing mask of twisted heritage and falsified traditions. The damage he has done to American Heathenry is incalculable.

It is not clear when McNallen first subscribed to racialist practice but the first proof we have of him articulating such a position is from 1985 and the time of the Asatru Free Assembly. During the 70s and 80s the old AFA, as it is known, was kicked off by a dispute over what to do about a kindred in Arizona who included open neo-Nazis. The debate steadily split the AFA into two camps: those who supported excluding those from the community who were not of proven Germanic descent and those who welcomed all interested seekers. The tensions of the debate would lead to the AFA dissolving sometime between 1986 and 1987. As the schism in the Asatru Free Assembly Stephen was gaining momentum McNallen would write and publish the document that would be the foundation of his form of Heathen practice: Metagenetics.

In “Metagenetics” McNallen lays out his case for racialized, ethnocentric spirituality. He begins by saying:

One of the most controversial tenets of Asatru is our insistence that ancestry matters- that there are spiritual and metaphysical implications to heredity, and that we are thus a religion not for all of humanity, but rather one that calls only its own. This belief of ours has led to much misunderstanding, and as aresult some have attempted to label us as “racist”, or have accused us of fronting for totalitarian political forms.

He proceeds to lay out his case proving the link between genetics and spirituality. McNallen claims these ideas are based on, “intuitive insights as old as our people” but then proceeds to cite no sagas, sources, or examples to back this claim up. The closest he gets is when he claims reincarnation by bloodline was a universal belief among the ancient Germanics saying, “A person did not come back as a bug or a rabbit, or as a person of another race or tribe, but as a member of their own clan.” (emphasis ours) After citing Carl Jung as justification for his theories McNallen asserts, “A more precise statement of the mind/body/spirit link, and of the religious implications of biological kinship, would be hard to find,” before concluding:

No doubt, on an earlier and deeper level of psychic development, where it is still impossible to distinguish between an Aryan, Semitic,Hamitic, or Mongolian mentality, all human races have a common collective psyche. But with the beginning of racial differentiation, essential differences are developed in the collective psyche as well. For this reason, we cannot transplant the spirit of a foreign religion ‘in globo’ into our own mentality without sensible injury to the latter.”

The only support he has to validate his arguments is an uncited study on Tlingit spirituality. The lack of properly cited sources, surprising given McNallen’s college education and his years of service as a 2nd Lieutenant in the US Army in Germany, only serves to bolster and legitimize an overtly racist argument. He puts it most clearly and obviously when he says in his closing paragraph, “only by

understanding who we are, only by coming from our racial “center”, can we interact justly and with wisdom with other peoples on this planet”. Regardless of one’s opinions regarding his logic, methodology, sourcing, or position it is clear since at least 1985, when he published Metagenetics, McNallen stood unquestionably for racialist Heathenry.

In the years following the dissolution of the old AFA and the founding of the Ring of the Troth Stephen McNallen traveled the world, particularly in South Africa, Namibia, and Botswana, as a writer for Soldier of Fortune magazine.

One piece he published was in the May 1995 issue covering the notorious mercentary outfit Executive Outcomes, one of the first modern private mercenary corporations.

The byline for the article McNallen introduces them with, “If you are willing to occasionally fire up a few friends from a long-time, pro-Western, anti-communist guerrilla group, Executive Outcomes is looking for a few good mercs.” The true story behind Executive Outcomes is much less glamorous than this implies. Founded in 1989 by former Lt. Colonel Eeben Barlow of the South Africa Defense Force’s infamous Civil Cooperation Bureau, an apartheid-era government hit squad, Barlow took advantage of the downsizing of the SADF to recruit now unemployed veterans & special forces operators to form the backbone of his new business venture. EO would do the dirty work for corporate interests all over Africa until their dissolution in 1999.

McNallen’s time in South Africa would have a profound impact on his form of racialized Heathenry. When he returned to the United States in 1994 from his travels abroad and founded the Asatru Folk Assembly, he began promoting many concepts central to Afrikaner nationalism as if they are inseparable from Asatru itself.

10 responses to “Stephen McNallen and Racialist Asatru”

I don’t know rather to click “like” or not on these kinds of stories. I’ll do it to show support for the writer and the blog

Anyway, I have never heard of this dude or his “outfit” so I really can’t say much about him or them. I do know the fastest way to win people over is to go the cult route. People love that religious bullshit.

Yeah, when we find info like this we have a lot of mixed feelings of revulsion and pride for exposing it to the public. Circle Anuz did a kickass job on this one and they deserve not only the credit but a ton of props.

Thank you for your article – it is quite interesting. After reading it however, I began to think what’s the sense of “exposing” inconsequential extremist fringe group like the AFA. This accomplishes very little in the ultimate goal of creating a just and peaceful global society. Exposing and attacking state-sponsored racism/cleansing does more to advance the cause – start with ethnic cleansing of Uyghurs and Tibetans by PRC. Or, the most revolting of all Israel’s (with our apparent blessing) abhorrent treatment of Palestinians. By tackling the big stuff first, the small pieces follow suit.

Well gosh, who else would show up in our comment section: “Joseph A. Vetrano” from New York, New York.

How do we know it’s him? A simple search came up with the hacked database of white supremacist David Irving. You see, when he posted here, he used the same name, alias and email address as he did when he paid fifteen dollars to see Neo-Nazi/Holocaust Denier David Irving speak in Manhattan in 2009. Lest we tread the oft-trammeled path of “BUT I WAS ONLY CURIOUS, IM NOT REALLY A NAZI,” this was Joseph A. Vetrano’s second time paying money to see David Irving speak.

Hey Joe, what are your feelings on jews? You’re “dumbstruck about the behavior of these people and their culture”? We wholeheartedly agree with you on the “DUMB” part.

I found your blog writing of interest and gave some genuine feedback. What is disgraceful is the manner in which treat someone by, in fact, breaching one’s confidentiality (illegal). I would appreciate if you remove your post with the confidential info and respond (if you like to my comment). Thanks

Hey hey hey, let’s not call nazi’s pigs, it is quite offensive to pigs who already get enough maligning in society. I also would avoid calling them scum because it is offensive to scum. Even the lowly scum puddle is better than a nazi and that is saying quite a lot.

Nothing confidential on the internet, buck-a-rooni! Plus you are on David Irving’s list and you aren’t on his list unless you believe his bullshit.

Plus you are also encouraging people not to actually deal with racism. Personally I believe in the principle of violence against racists. It is a sensible ideal based around many of their ideals of attacking people of other races, sexes, creeds, sexual orientations, beliefs… I find peace and justice to be nice concepts but not practical for the real world. The real world is a fucked up violent place and singing kumbaya (or some pro-white english version) and denying the holocaust ain’t gonna change that.

Here is a pro-tip: If you don’t want to have information on the internet DON’T USE THE INTERNET YOU NAZI BASTARD!